1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic purchase method and funds transfer system. Particularly, the present invention is directed to securely making an electronic purchase, suitable for both business and consumer transactions, that limits the amount of purchaser information disclosed to the seller.
2. Description of Related Art
The development of the Internet has created vast new markets and marketplaces. A consumer with an Internet connection may search for, and likely find, a wide variety of goods and services. While e-commerce flourishes, though, consumers are becoming more and more wary of the apparent free flow of sensitive personal, financial and other information that takes place over the Internet, especially incident to electronic purchasing. This concern is exacerbated by the limited amount of payment options available for electronic purchasing.
Consumer Internet payments, currently estimated well into the billions of dollars, are dominated by credit cards. Online credit card acceptance is a lucrative business for banks and other payment enablers, who typically charge merchants a “discount rate” of between 2-5% of the value of each transaction, in addition to a variety of other fees. Discount fees paid by online merchants are a significant source of business to credit card companies, and that business will continue to grow at an ever faster rate as online commerce continues to explode.
Although widespread, credit cards have significant limitations for merchants, consumers and small businesses. Merchant discount rates on the Internet are typically far higher than in the physical world. Moreover, those discount rates continue to rise.
Another disadvantage of credit card usage is that online merchants are also exposed to high fraud costs and “chargeback fees,” bearing liability because there is no credit card signature with an online sale.
The dominance of credit cards also shrinks the market for online merchants and consumers. As the online population becomes more mainstream, millions of adults and teenagers without credit cards are left out of online shopping. In addition, most small business employees do not have small business credit cards.
Credit cards are also inconvenient or illegal for some businesses. For example, legal and regulatory restrictions prevent insurance brokers, mortgage brokers and money managers from accepting many types of payments via credit cards.
Furthermore, despite the dominance of credit cards on the Internet, in the overall economy, physical paper checks are still a more preferred way for most people to pay for point-of-sale purchases; this preference is particularly pronounced among certain populations of consumers (e.g. adults over 50) and in certain merchant categories (e.g. grocery stores).
Internet auctions, a particularly fast-growing segment of the Internet commerce community, are ill-adapted for credit card purchasing. Most transactions initiated through an auction site are paid for via a personal check or money order. Each of these methods has major limitations and friction for consumers: personal checks sent through the mail are slow, do not come with a guarantee, and provide bank account information to an unknown person. By contrast, money orders, while providing a payment guarantee for sellers, are inconvenient for buyers who must buy them in the physical world and pay a fee for them.
The challenges and limitations of existing Internet payment methods have led to a variety of systems and methods with a host of different solutions. These systems, however, have focused on solving either the Internet payment challenges of merchants or the payment challenges of consumers. To date, there is no system or method for making an electronic purchase that overcomes the significant obstacles of the credit card and provides a useful alternative to both merchants and consumers.
One popular system that avoids some of the problems associated with the credit card is use of a debit card. Despite increased adoption and usage of debit card payments in the physical world, however, debit cards have not been particularly successful on the Internet for a variety of reasons. The debit cards that are being used on the Internet are “offline” debit cards. “Offline” debit cards work like credit cards, without the use of a personal identification number (PIN). Unlike debit transactions using a PIN, these transactions are processed through the credit card networks, resulting in a “delayed debit,” where payment is deducted 2-3 days after the transaction occurs. The “delayed debit” feature exposes banks to credit risk, and as a result, “offline” debit cards are usually only issued to individuals who already have credit cards, leaving millions of consumers without a debit vehicle for purchasing online. In addition, merchants have to pay a discount rate that is almost as high as credit card rates. Debit cards also are problematic for consumers, because many debit cards have daily volume limits that make them impractical for transactions over a particular amount. Moreover, debit cards do not have the same level of fraud protection for consumers, since they are not covered by Consumer Credit Protection Act Regulation Z. Finally, debit cards are not generally suitable for business to business transactions.
Since “online” or PIN-based debit has become so popular in the physical world, several initiatives are underway to bring PIN-based debit to the Internet. Today it is not possible to use a basic ATM card number in order to pay on the Internet. First, the information needed to process ATM card transactions, including the necessary routing information, are contained in a magnetic strip on the card. Second, a consumer's PIN requires both consumers and merchants to have access to PIN-pad technology. Existing technology does not allow for magnetic strip and PIN dependent transactions to be conducted on line. Moreover, such a system would require transmission of a consumer's closely guarded PIN over the Internet.
Other methods for electronic purchasing which have been developed by banks or check verification companies, fall into two primary categories: 1) smart-card based solutions and 2) check printing solutions. The smart card solutions are highly secure, but cumbersome, requiring consumers to have a smart card reader and smart card to pass a digital signature along with checking account information. The check printing solutions are easy for consumers, but far less secure, and require merchants to buy special check printing equipment and proprietary checks to print out (and then deposit) physical paper facsimiles of the consumer check.
Other methods for facilitating electronic payment without the use of credit cards have relied on transferring funds from a purchaser's bank account to a merchant. The prior systems and methods, however, have been unsatisfactory for a number of reasons. Most require the purchaser to communicate his or her personal financial information (including banks and account numbers) directly to the merchant each time a purchase is made, who then requests payment from a check processor. The check processor then handles the transfer of funds by creating a physical, printed check drawn on the purchaser's account, or electronically transferring funds to the merchant. Other electronic funds transfer methods require e-mail notifications to the funds recipient for every transaction. Such methods are not suitable for consumer-to-business or business-to-business use, which may include hundreds or thousands of transactions each day. Other methods require each user to have a separate account that deals specifically with a “quasi-currency”, such as credits, discounts, mileage or unique “dollars” specific to the service provider, that must be converted to regular funds for each transaction. Others still require a user to own a credit card to be eligible for the service, even if funds are transferred from a separate bank account.
There is no method or system in the prior art that allows for electronic purchasing without a credit card, without transmitting financial information to a merchant, and is suitable for all types of business and consumer transactions.